A whimsical, hand-decorated shirt for the baby boomers' grandkids.

Photos by Jim Davis / arizona daily star

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Elvis is in the building, in gold lamé, no less. So are Annette and her Mouseketeer ears, the Beatles, and Jack and Jackie.

If you have to ask "Jack and Jackie who?" chances are you didn't come of age in the '60s.

For those who did, particularly the females in that huge conglomeration known as the boomers, there's now a shop just for you.

Opened since June in Green Valley, '60s Chicks is the brainchild of Sharon Collins and a few of her high school chums.

"When I turned 60, I wrote to all my best friends from high school to come out here to get together," says Collins, now 61.

Six showed up. "We were all turning 60." They were also finding clothes in the stores no longer fit their changing bodies, or their lifestyles.

"Everything was either too old or too young," says Collins. Solution: open up her own boutique with styles to fit that need.

The result is a small shop filled with comfortable clothing, retro toys and costume jewelry.

"It's cruise wear," says Collins. "It's more like a resort shop or an airport shop, a little niche that doesn't have to compete with Wal-Mart."

Posters of '60s icons cover the walls, and the dressing room is dedicated to Jackie Kennedy, with large photos of Jack and Jackie gracing the walls, along with a replica of the dress Collins wore to her 1963 high school prom.

"Here's the original one," she says, hauling out an old photo of her in the dress, next to her date. He is, of course, wearing a white sport coat and a pink carnation.

We are sitting at a Formica kitchen table my mother could have owned. Booker T. and the MG's are filling the room with "Green Onions."

A dish of Bazooka bubble gum sits on the table. I will try to refrain.

Collins, one of four kids, grew up in Virginia, where her mom, a nurse, took care of the elderly.

"We all lived in this great big house. We would take in patients one at a time." Later, her mother expanded into nursing homes.

After earning a teaching degree, Collins taught third grade for a time, married a football coach and had two kids.

By the 1970s, she was a single mom looking to make a living. "I got a small-business loan and started a child-care center in an old Catholic church. I had 100 kids, ages 2 to 10."

She eventually remarried, became a kindergarten teacher at Tufts University Early Childhood Center, then came to Tucson in 1989. "My mother had retired here," says Collins.

After a stint at substitute teaching, she became director of an assisted-living center.

In the early '90s, she jumped into politics. "I had never done anything like that before," says Collins, who volunteered in Jon Kyl's 1994 Senate campaign.

"Then I decided to run for mayor of Tucson against George Miller," says Collins. "I was so naive. One of the election officials told me to shorten my skirts and take out the bump in my nose. I was speechless."

She did neither. She also lost, garnering about one-third of the votes. Undeterred, she ran for the state Legislature in District 14 in 1996. Collins lost that race as well.

In 2002 she gave it one more shot, running against Jan Brewer for secretary of state. "I lost again. I had this guy say to me, 'Have you had enough?' "

Turns out she had, though only in the election arena.

Earlier, she had served as deputy director of Gov. Fife Symington's Tucson office until he resigned under pressure in 1997. Collins stayed on to work for Symington's successor, Jane Hull.

During her last election bid in 2002, Collins got to know Tom Horne, who was running for state superintendent of public instruction.

"He found out I had been a teacher," says Collins, who today serves as associate superintendent of greater Arizona for the Arizona Department of Education.

"I visit the rural schools in all 15 counties," says Collins, who also serves on the board of the Arizona's Children Association.

Oh yeah, she's also got this boutique to run. One thing about boomers — they don't seem to be slowing down anytime soon.